Saint-Gobain established its presence in India by acquiring a majority stake in Grindwell Norton Ltd. in 1996, and thereafter went on to consolidate and strengthen its presence within the country.

Saint-Gobain Sekurit is a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, one of the top 100 industrial companies in the world. Saint-Gobain is active in five main sectors: flat glass, high-performance materials, construction products, building distribution and packaging.

Saint-Gobain Sekurit supplies automotive glazing and modular components for the global vehicle manufacturing segment and the replacement market. The company is present in 22 countries, with 45 per cent market share in the European Market, 23 per cent Worldwide and a rapidly growing presence in Asia.

Saint-Gobain Sekurit India (SGSI), produces laminated and tempered glazing for the Indian Automotive Market and has a presence in several important OEMs like Tata Motors, Hyundai Motors, Toyota Kirloskar Motors, General Motors, Mahindra-Renault, among others. SGSI’s product range includes glasses for passenger cars and MUV’s, Commercial Vehicles, 3-wheelers and bus/coach builders. It has two manufacturing facilities in Pune (Chakan and Bhosari) and a new facility at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai.

In view of the anticipated growth of the automotive segment in India, work on the state-of-the-art greenfield facility was started in 2004 in Sriperumbudur. The state-of-the-art plant is highly flexible, automated and scaleable. It will have an eventual capacity of 2 million car sets for Laminated Windshields, Sidelites and complex Backlites. The Pune facilities at Chakan and Bhosari are being modernized through significant investments and are dedicated to complex Curved Windshields and Backlites.

The Saint-Gobain Sekurit business in India has shown strong growth in the last 4 years and has captured significant market share. With the state-of-the-art technology and capacity additions planned, SGSI is poised to become the supplier of choice among automotive majors in India in the next few years.

Saint-Gobain is organized into three main sectors where it holds a position of world leader:

• Housing products (building distribution, building materials, pipelines)
• Glass (flat glass, insulation and reinforcement, packaging)
• High-performance materials (ceramics & plastics and abrasives)

Saint-Gobain Sekurit supplies different glazing options to the new Exeo that has been presented by Seat in Valencia at the end of February 2009: Windshields with acoustic glazing and heat reflecting glazing, also laminated side glazing or dark tinted glazing behind the B-pillar. These innovative added value glazing reduce the sound level in the vehicle as well as they improve thermal comfort.

Product range of the company includes:

• Acoustic Glass
• Anti-Heat Glass
• Dark Tinted Glass
• Electrochromic Glass
• Heatable Glass
• Hydrophobic Glass
• Laminated Glass